Thursday, April 18, 2019

Alert The Media! Rich People Are Cheating At The Game Of Life!

Some
clever law enforcement professionals recently, belatedly, became
aware that certain rich Hollywood types were doing more than pulling
strings and waving their eyelashes to help to get their children into
elite schools. They were applying money to the problem. This has, of
course, been going on since rich people and elite schools have
existed in America, and that makes me wonder. Why finally notice and
take action now? What's so special about now?

I
haven't seen a complete list of the poor defendants who were sucked
up in this dragnet, so for now I remain merely suspicious. The poster
children for this new class of criminal masterminds are Felicity
Huffman and Lori Loughlin. If the other thirty-three (!!!) arrestees
are also prosperous entertainers, I'm going to get much more
suspicious in a hurry. I hope that no one believes that people who
made their money either in business deals or in stock manipulations
are above this kind of behavior.

Ms.
Huffman and Ms. Loughlin's cases are as different as night and day.
The former's case is very simple, and the methods used were
inexpensive. The later was much more ambitious, and the whole thing
cost her over half a mil. To my knowledge, the dragnet completely
ignored the very rich who cheat their children into elite schools by
simply throwing huge sums of money at the target school. There is a
quid pro quo, but it remains discretely in the background. The school
gets a new pool and a new floor on its basketball court, and some
undeserving brat goes to Princeton. The law enforcement professionals
were probably warned off by the schools, who naturally want to see
that kind of largess continue.

Ms.
Huffman is alleged to have paid $15,000 to improve her daughter's SAT
scores. I've seen the methodology described in two ways in our
modern, less than reliable media. Either: 1) someone with access to
the tests changed many of her answers from wrong to correct; or 2)
someone was paid to pose as the daughter and take the SAT again after
a miserable showing by the real daughter. Either way, it is alleged
that for a mere one-time payment of $15,000, the daughter's SAT score
was raised by 400 points. That, my friends, would be the greatest
bargain in the history of fraud.

On
a sadder note, it is also alleged that Ms. Huffman paid a sympathetic
medical professional to prove up some kind of learning disability for
the daughter. This kind of thing buys them more time for taking the
test itself. Therein lies a tale.

When
I graduated from law school, several of my classmates mysteriously
came down with bad cases of dyslexia, you know, before the bar exam.
They hadn't had any trouble with passing law school classes, and I
can tell you that I went to a school that believed in extremely
difficult tests. Those crooked students could hardly contain their
delight at these diagnoses. One guy was being so obnoxious about it
that I came dangerously close to throwing him down a flight of
stairs.

Ms.
Huffman has pleaded guilty to one count of something relatively
insignificant, but just for the optics I'm sure they'll put her
behind bars for a while. This kind of demonstration is common with
celebrities. Make a fuss about sentencing them and putting them in
orange jumpsuits, and then quietly let them go after a matter of days
or weeks.

Ms.
Loughlin's case is far more serious, although, strangely, she does
not seem to be taking it very seriously. She is alleged to have paid
an employee of the target university to dummy up an acceptance for
her daughter. The employee works, or “worked,” more likely, as a
high-level coach for a lesser sport. That one cost a cool $500,000,
an amount that generates a lot of interest among prosecutors and
juries. Ms. Loughlin has very casually turned down a plea deal that
would have put her in prison for a couple of years. I read somewhere
that the prosecutor has left the plea deal on the table as is, which
surprised me. More often they bump up the years in the offer. They
claim to have her on the hook for twenty, or forty, or something.
When that much money changes hands as part of a criminal enterprise,
all kinds of peripheral charges are triggered. For instance, money
laundering.

If
she keeps shining them on with that confident smile, she could really
piss them off. If that happens, she could do some real time. Somebody
needs to explain to her that this is not a Hallmark made-for-TV
movie. These people can hurt you.

On
the Other Side of the Tracks!

All
of this is very nice, but, as usual, the devil is down in the corners
somewhere. CNN dot com was kind enough to write up a story about what
happens when black women are charged with crimes that bear surface
similarities to those described above. That, my darlings, is not a
pretty picture, but you probably knew that already.

Kelly
W-B, of Ohio, used her father's address to get her child into a
better school that was outside of her assigned district. I'll bet
that most of us know someone who has done that, or something similar.
Well, Miss Kelly got caught, and the full force of the law was
brought to bear not only on Miss Kelly, but also on her father. Kelly
did nine days in jail, just to make sure that she understood the
gravity of the situation, and she had to pay a total of $36,000,
mostly to the school in her assigned district which had lost
government revenue for having one less student. Her father, hold on
to your hat, was sentenced to prison, that's where you go when you
are convicted of a felony, and he died in prison.

Tanya
McD of Connecticut was arrested on the same charge, using a false or
fraudulent address to get her child into a school outside of her
assigned district. This one gets poignant in a hurry, so get a tissue
handy. This is a tearjerker. Ms. Tanya was homeless at the time, so
she didn't have any damn address. She used an address that she knew
would get her child into a better school. She did a lot more time
that Miss Kelly did, but that's apples and oranges because Tanya's
case had drug charges attached to it by the time the prosecutors got
rolling. Unless there was a suitable relative to take the child, it's
a sure thing that Social Services took away Tanya's parental rights
and put the child in a foster home.

Back
to Hollywood!

Felicity
might get off with some community service or something. She's
cooperating, and her crimes are not great. If Lori's not careful,
though, she could get some of that Martha Stewart time. She could miss a few holidays, maybe even a couple of birthdays. I won't cry for either of them, but Kelly and
Tanya have my deepest sympathies.

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About Me

Mr. C is: a reformed lawyer; a religious atheist; a useful "Handy Man;" an amateur social scientist; a beloved teacher; a well liked husband and father; Ambassador Emeritus from, and to, Planet X; a freelance professor; taxi driver to the stars (Joe DiMaggio and Ronald McDonald, both out of uniform); an excellent fire fighter; an enthusiastic but untalented musician; an experienced counselor; a top-notch disk jockey; an all around get-along-guy; a cunning linguist; a would-be lifestyle victim; a Masonic wannabe; a frequent reader; Professor Irwin Corey's Ph.D. adviser; an accomplished driver and motorcyclist; a famous rockologist; a reliable but indifferent bullshit detective; a poor speller; a proud United States Navy veteran (honorably discharged, barely); the Ayatollah of Ass-o-Hola; a drug legend; a Returned Peace Corps volunteer (Thailand); a generally charming man; nationally and internationally known from coast to coast; a legend in his own mind; a cultural-anthropological critic-at-large; an avenging angel who coolly bides his time; Soul Brother number 37; and a friend to the poor.